Monday Music Mashup #1

One of the great things about music, any genre of music, is its ability to cross boundaries, breaking down walls, prejudices, and long-held misperceptions about other cultures as it goes. Today I am featuring three videos from performers who are working across genres mashing up traditional instruments with contemporary rock tunes. I love the hybrid sound that results from these performances. It makes me realise that there are many ways of approaching traditional instruments and many ways too, or reinterpreting songs that have become classics in their original form. 

In the videos below, Stary Olsa, are a group out of Belorussia, who play a mix of traditional and contemporary music on medieval instruments, many of which they have made themselves. They cover Metallica’s song, One. Meanwhile the young Korean gayageum player, Luna Lee, performs and instrumental version of B.B. King’s, The Thrill Is Gone. Lee has been garnering much attention for her reworking of many modern rock and blues songs, and has even appeared at a SXSW Showcase. My third selection features the American mountain dulcimer player, Sam Edelstein playing one of the first big hits for the Rolling Stones, their 1966 classic, 19th Nervous Breakdown. Sam lives in Connecticut, and has won awards for his dulcimer playing.

I don’t know if the original bands or musicians have seen these videos, and if they have, what they think about them, but I’d like to think they are more than happy with the musicians below who have found ways to reimagine the original songs and share their interpretations with the rest of the music world. 

Stary Olsa (Medieval Instruments): One, by Metallica

Stary Olsa, first came to my attention last year after I saw their very successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. The group, from Belorussia, had set a goal of $7000 to fund an album of rock songs performed on traditional Medieval instruments. The campaign was so successful (they raised $29,890), that Stary Olsa were also able to undertake their first tour of the United States.

Stary Olsa have also covered AC/DCs Highway To Hell, Deep Purple’s Child In Time, and many other contemporary rocks songs, many of which were released on their 12th studio album—the one funded by their Kickstarter.

Here are Stary Olsa performing Metallica’s One, on the Belarusian television show Legends:

More Information: StaryOlsa.Com | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter

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Luna Lee (Korean Gayageum): The Thrill Is Gone, by B.B. King

I don’t know how old the Korean performer, Luna Lee is, but she looks too young to be playing the traditional Asian instrument called a gayageum so expertly and fluidly. Clearly she has been learning the instrument since she was a young child.

Luna Lee has filmed many videos of herself reinterpreting a wide range of contemporary rock music, as well as classic blues songs. Looking at the many videos on her YouTube channel, it is obvious that she, or someone in her inner circle of support, is very adept at producing quite complex video productions which often include multiple windows when she multitracks on numerous songs. Here is Luna Lee performing to a  backing track, B.B. King’s The Thrill Is Gone:

More Information: Luna Lee Online... | Facebook... | YouTube... | Patreon… 

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Sam Edelstein (Mountain Dulcimer): 19th Nervous Breakdown, by The Rolling Stones)

To quote directly from Sam Edelstein’s Facebook page:

I believe that dulcimers are among the world's coolest musical instruments. People deserve to know about dulcimers, the way that people already know about harmonicas, ukuleles, and xylophones (to name a few examples).

Even though dulcimers are used primarily for folk music here in the US, they're great for many other kinds of music. In fact, they're natural rock & roll instruments. (Cyndi Lauper and Joni Mitchell perform on mountain dulcimer, and I once saw one in a Rolling Stones exhibit at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame!)

I believe in exposing people to interesting and surprising music on dulcimers.

More Information: Sam Edelstein at YouTube… | Facebook…

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And as an added bonus, here is Luna Lee again, this time multi-tracking to Sultans Of Swing, by Dire Straits.

Thanks to the always interesting Open Culture website for bringing Sam Edelstein, and Luna Lee to my attention.

Let's Not Travel To Tick Things Off Lists...

Let's not travel to tick things 

off lists 

or collect half-hearted semi-treasures 

to be placed in dusty drawers 

in empty rooms.

Rather, we'll travel to find grounds 

and rooftops 

and tiny hidden parks, 

where we'll sit and dismiss 

the passing time, 

spun in the city's web 

'til we've surrendered, 

content to be spent 

and consumed. 

I need to feel a place 

while I'm in it.

~ Victoria Erickson

Using Online Cloud Backup Services

I have just spent an hour or two going through thousands of images stored in my Google Photos Cloud account. Some of these go back to 2011.

Now, if you are a traveller like me and travel light, which in my case means with an iPad, and you automatically backup up photos and other documents to the ‘cloud’, you will know how useful this feature can be. Having access to images, documents and other files stored in the cloud, no matter how far away you may be from home, is fast becoming an essential service for the convenience it offers to travellers of all descriptions—especially tourists and business people.

I’m a good example. For instance, I always take screenshots of receipts, concert tickets, booking information, flight itineraries, and sometimes even screenshots of information when I am online checking my bank statements. Of course I always try to remember to delete the most personal information after I have made use of it (Of course you do, Jim!)

HOWEVER!

On reviewing the photos and screenshots in my Google Photos account today, I was shocked to find all sorts of personal information, such as passwords, bank statements, credit card numbers, passport details, security codes, my home address, email accounts, and much more ‘safely’ backed up to the Cloud. 

The implications of this are obvious. We assume that these types of backup services are safe and secure from hackers and snoopers, and that may very well be the case. But if I had lost, or had my smartphone or iPad stolen, an enterprising and knowledgable person would find it simple enough to scroll through my Google Photos account on the off chance that personal information had found its way there. And in my case, they would have found plenty!

“But wait,” you say, “Surely everyone needs an email address and passwords to sign into their online accounts.”

Well, yes, but the helpful engineers at Google have a solution for that. They have designed their software to automatically save our sign-in details (after asking permission first), thus make the log-in process quick and painless, and if you are anything like me, you will have happily agreed to this time saving feature. Needless to say, any enterprising snooper will also be grateful to you for implementing these shortcuts!

One way of protecting ourselves from this type of deliberate or even inadvertent snooping is to log out of every application after we have finished using it. But of course, we all know how irritating it is to log into a service every time we want to access it.

So what’s a hard-pressed traveller to do?

Screenshot of files backed up to Google Drive

Well, you could disable all automatic backups to your cloud service providers, but that is not always the ideal option. If you do continue to use cloud services, the smart thing to do is make sure you sign out of your accounts like Google (and all other apps and programs) once you have finished doing whatever it was you were engaged in at the time. This is a better option than not using backup services at all. And if you can’t be bothered doing even that, then for goodness sake, at least check the files and photos stored with your cloud service provider on a regular basis, and delete those files that contain your personal notes, documents, screenshots and other private information.

While you are at it, check through Google Drive, the other Cloud backup service that may be storing important documents and information you would rather not share with the rest of the world.

And when you have finished doing that, you may also need to check your Dropbox and Apple iCloud accounts, or any other of the dozens of backup services now available, which is exactly what I am going to do now.